Mud and my motor bike.

It is a long time since I blogged. I continue to over-use the word "fascinating" to describe living and working in Mae Sot.

Yesterday I followed a young Spanish woman to her learning centre - Light School - where she has volunteered as an English teacher for nearly two years now. I followed her because I could not find the school even though it is only 15minutes bike ride from Mae Sot. I followed on my motor bike. Off we went, down sois (lanes), through the cow market (naturally, very smelly), slithering and sliding through puddles and potholes of mud and dung I suspect. One of these days I will fall into the sludge but, thank goodness, not yesterday - not into that dung. Claudia led the way through the fields of rice paddies and I was reminded of Julia Roberts in Eat Love Pray. It truly was beautiful if I took my eyes off the track. I thought I would return on my own via the road. Bad decision! It not only had more stinking mud and huge potholes but I had to avoid the tethered cows. They were huge but I did find they were unimpressed with my efforts and ignored me. How often do I remind myself that life is an adventure.

Are these schools?

Time for a wee up-date I feel.

The rainy season is well underway here now. Our office team have been visiting learning centres and yesterday we got soaked through and then very stuck. Sometimes it is OK to be a female as no one expected me to push. I still got very wet and my shoes covered in mud - again.We were visiting a learning centre built of bamboo on top of a big pond that has a fish farm underneath. It was the first bamboo school I had been in as most have been replaced by block and corrugated iron. Even the floor was bamboo and being the heaviest person there I was scared I would go through the floor. Even though I had seen some schools with no kids in them I am now so shocked to see them with kids in them. It is so heart breaking and almost indescribable. They resemble nothing that I call a school. Oh they do have adults and kids and that is where the similarity starts and ends. Even photos don't do them justice. I think the health care for the migrants is also as extreme although there are lots of organisations working with them as well. One big organisation that has many donors and who supply money and support for over 30 learning centres is having a big up-heaval at the moment. If donors pull out it will mean many schools and kids missing out on absolute basics.

When we arrive at learning centres we are made so incredibly welcome. We are usually offered lunch with everyone else. I found these mothers doing the dishes after lunch. An amazing kitchen.

I have been running into several NZers lately. One young woman from Wellington runs an organisation who are supplying exercise books, pencils, pens, rulers etc for all 13000 migrant children for the rest of the year. They use many exercise books here as they have no other resources. The kids get very good at copying off the whiteboard. The noise in the learning centres is amazing as there are no walls between all the different grades. The kids often chant answers back and the rest of the kids can't hear a thing - well I couldn't anyhow. It means in a room 10metres by 60 metres are 150 kids or more aged from KG to grade 7. There isn't much space for these grade 5 kids to take part in activity based learning. You don't often see school bags but these kids have them.

I have also met a lady from Palmy who is volunteering in a senior school. We will catch up soon as she was teaching when I was in her school. There are 2 NZers in her school but the other was not there when I called.

The social life has picked up considerably. I have plans to go cruising in a mini van next weekend to long distances with my work team, eating out takes up most evenings, movies Wednesday nights in someone's house, and coming up soon we are riding our motorbikes about 40 kms away to another area - an invitation from an Aussie who is volunteering there.

It is still warm enough to sleep without a sheet on top although I don't have the fan on anymore.

At work I have found some little projects to have a go at. I am writing a couple of policies for my office to try to prevent confusions as all the volunteers come and go, trying to get a student report book underway and 30,000 printed (extra funded project), and supporting my bosses research into learning centre conditions. Everything takes a very long time as it all needs translating and checked again and again. Documents for the learning centres are in Burmese and English and stuff for the office in Thai, Burmese and English. Some meetings I go to are repeated 3 times as well- English, Thai and Burmese. It is hard to keep focussed at these meetings.

So that is me at the moment.

Asia is certainly different and Maesot very different.

Moving around is amazing

Transport here is a fascination. It can range from the family motor bike carrying the tiniest baby to several adults all at the same time. The truck which we call a ute is loaded so high it is scary to pass by and there are people on top of it or the deck of the ute has a large number of people going somewhere. There are all sorts of the strangest contraptions to transport things and people including tuk tuks, motor bike taxis, motor bikes or push bikes with a deck at the front. And then there is me shuddering along on my motor bike. I have a license now although, to pass, I had to learn THEIR answers by rote not the ones in the road code. They were different. The English translations were a real challenge. I couldn't even imagine what was being asked. So, transport remains a fascination and these are only 3 examples of how to get around. The varieties are limitless.

Personal life in Maesot

My nice little house. 1 bdrm, 1 bthrm. Home away from home! The building behind is a hotel. My little house is in a group of 6 with two of the others VSO people and one other a western person from UK.





Socially, ex-pat life is also fascinating. This week I have been to 2 farewells and 1 birthday party all for people I did not know 6 weeks ago. It is a very transient place because all expats are on contracts - often quite short term. A number of people so enjoy it here they either extend or find other employment here when their contract is over.

I have got my motor cycle under control now and get out and about exploring the countryside. The border is amazing. I have visited it so many times. The armed military are in full view as the migrants cross over the border river illegally and constantly on truck tubes. That is just how life is here. It is so busy.

My little house is fine. It is sparsely furnished but I sleep comfortably on my mattress on the floor until the construction workers next start door 7 days a week.

Thank goodness for Internet. Skype is erratic but I can listen to classic hits Chch and watch Al Jazeera news. Everyone has their windows wide open to catch every draft to try to keep cool so I am concerned about my noise annoying the neighbours.

Here I am watching Aljazeera on my little notebook laptop with my head phones on wondering why I ever needed that great big TV at home.

I had a long weekend recently but none of the other volunteers had the same holiday. I decided to go to Vientiane, Laos. It was an amazing adventure to get there - about 16 hours on buses which were totally OK. I was amazed how little English was spoken and there were no signs in English in some of the big cities in Thailand that I had to change buses at. That was a bit scary - not being able to communicate. But Vientiane was lovely - a little bit of evidence of the French past, a little bit of evidence of a capital city, the mighty Mekong, a lot of obvious Asia and a growing tourist industry - it was a fascinating mixture. I understand there are many gorgeous places to go to in Laos.

Eating is still a great occupation here. I was really pleased with myself as I cooked dinner 3 times last week. It probably cost more to do that than to to eat out though. There is such a huge variety and it is all such an adventure. The food is amazing. I haven't tasted anything nasty but sometimes it is too spicy - I am getting better with that though. I have looked at the live frogs and live eels at the market and hope I have not had those in a meal. The thought is not nice. The food is often not recognisable when it is served but I do usually know what it is. I'll certainly eat a lot more rice when I return home. Fried rice - great with so many foods.

End of the holidays for the migrant children.

Yeah! Students return to the migrant schools next week - at the start of June. I am really looking forward to seeing kids in schools and seeing how it all works.

I have visited teacher training sessions for head teachers, nursery teachers and subject teachers all facilitated by different NGOs and CBOs. I have chatted with a number of different personnel from these different organisations. I have helped the boys in the office complete some tasks that needed to be done before school starts.

There is so much help here for the migrants in so many different ways some of the help is disjointed and overlaps, I think. They all have their focus areas and the office I work in is not that strong because there is no law to enforce anything.



This is the team in the MOE office. The foto has been taken on a Tuesday because Tuesday's colour is pink. Everyone wears a pink shirt on Tuesday and I have one too now. I was welcomed with a presentation including these flowers and a fabulous Thai lunch out.

First impressions of schools

I was prepared for surprises when I visited schools but I was still very surprised. The school behind this lovely Burmese teacher has a class for each whiteboard. There are 6 whiteboards close to gether but each one has a teacher and class teaching and learning in front of it (it is holidays now so I have yet to see it in action). Only the nursery has a separated area. There are no windows just bamboo slats, an iron roof and block half walls.







Three little nursery children were chatting and playing in a little playhouse in the school yard. Their happy, busy sounds were just like little children from anywhere in the world.








Many of the schools have boarding facilities as well. This school has the benches and tables for daytime learning which turn into the dormitory room for the night. It is school holidays at the moment so they do not put away the flat tops for their beds but just roll up their personal things. There are racks above which are for putting the bedding onto during the day.

Mae Sot at Last

April 16th

At last I am in Maesot. It is a fascinating place.

I understand there are probably about as many Burmese here as there are Thai although it is a little hard to tell as many of the Burmese are illegal. They either stay here somewhere or travel by truck tube which is dragged over the river separating Thailand and Burma. They work here and because they are illegal they have no rights. They work on farms or in one of the many factories where they make a pittance and have awful conditions but that is still better than they would have at home, in Burma.

There are also so many ex-pats here to help the migrants or refugees. Some people are here helping while agencies are donors usually with money. (I heard an interesting term the other day "donor fatigue" - I bet there is evidence of that here too.) The help is often fragmented and it has no regulations so no one really knows what is happening in many situations. Schools are like this. Many have been started or picked up by all sorts of people but they are all doing their own thing. Registration of the migrant schools is becoming a reality, by law, and therefore schools will have to follow basic guidelines to become registered. Currently it is really unsupervised, unlawful and who knows what. 74 migrant unregistered schools have been located so far.

I have been at work 2 days and then we have the annual public holiday of New Year / Songkran / water festival. (It is the year 2554 here.) I have met the staff in the Migrant Education Co-ordination Centre (MECC) office and the wider Ministry of Education, I have enjoyed a lovely welcome with gifts, a pink Tuesday shirt and fabulous lunches. The staff are lovely, have varying skills in English language (some very good) while my Thai remains basic. I am looking forward to getting out into some schools very soon although all the children are on holiday for at least another month, and I also want to go to meet some agencies to try to understand their roles.

I have a funny orange bike for getting around on and a brand new red motor cycle. The traffic is terrifying so I have spent most of my time on the bike and just practicing on the "red terror". I have driven out into the countryside and seen rice paddies, and to the border to see a very hectic area but I'm not sure what is going on.

I have a cute little house with no air con (that's OK), a squat toilet and a dipper to flush (I'm getting good at that in spite of my creaky knees) and it is right in the middle of town down a quiet lane so that is all good. Six snarling, teeth baring, barking dogs live down this lane too but I am hoping they realise I live here soon and they will ignore me. I had to go shopping for furniture - nothing matches - it is just what I could find for the money but it is all OK.

Adventures

I have to tell you about my day. We were only going to the airport plaza shopping mall but we all split up. My reason was because i wanted a coffee and the others didn't. When i came to go home I decided to explore and you know I have a dreadful sense of direction. I got lost. Chiang Mai has nearly a million people spread out over a wide area. I found myself surrounded by fields. That was after i passed a temple where 3 dogs rushed out at me barking. (I have read all the stuff about rabies and i was terrified.) Funny I thought. I turned round to start walking back the way I had come and a man came and stopped on his motor bike. He couldn't understand English, I had not been taught "lost" and he couldn't read maps. He indicated I hop on the motor bike behind him. In spite of all VSO's warning about NOT going on a motor bike without a helmet I had no choice did I? By the way it was POURING rain and I was soaked right through and getting cold AND it was getting towards dark. Thank goodness after I got off at the first large road a songtao (taxi truck) came along and knew where Tipanet Rd was. Moral of the story - remember I have no sense of direction, take a brolly not your sun glasses, stay with other people.

Tomorrow's another day

One week in Thailand

This is the team arriving by song tao (taxi truck) to our new "home" in Chiang Mai. The songtao is the way to travel round here. 6 people on each side and if it's full you jump on the running board at the back and hold on. It's Ok, I've tried it.

I thought it time to fill you in on my activities. I have now been in Thailand just over a week although it seems much longer because things being so different from home, I guess. Things are very different.

All 37 VSO volunteers in Thailand and half a dozen staff have attended the annual 3 day conference which was at a resort in the mountains about 45 minutes from where we are staying in Chiang Mai. The conference is now over and all the new volunteers are now back in Chiang Mai. We start our language training tomorrow
and other in- country training things. learning the
road rules for riding a motor bike here is one of the
workshops - That'll be a joke as it doesn't look like any rules exist.

There are many things that surprise me;
One is the huge variety in the volunteers in gender, ages, nationalities and of course experiences. A 21 year old guy from the states who is here for a year working on developing sustainable practices in the migrant Burmese population is taking a break from his uni course and may consider trying to renew for another year. One of the the oldest people is a 65 year African woman who looks like a 45 year old. She is working at Mae Sot in the education sector.
Another surprise is the trouble people have with my kiwi accent and kiwi words. I am having to speak and clearer and without the kiwi isms. It is not easy to remind myself all the time. Of course, I am also having trouble with other people's accents. It is quite tiring having a discussion with some people as you have to concentrate so much. Thank goodness for 2 other kiwis, some canadians, americans and British. It seems every other nationality is represented.
Another surprise is the large VSO contingent in Mae Sot and they love being there. There are many other NGOs (non government organisations) as well and many of them are expats. It seems Mae Sot is almost more like Burma than Thailand as there are so many migrant Burmese people there. That is why VSO is there - all the work that VSO do in Thailand is with the Burmese migrants. There are 3 areas that VSO work on - education, advocacy and something to do with human rights (can't remember the correct term). The volunteers all have to develop sustainable skills with the Burmese teams they work with. There are people here involved in advocacy who are making movies with teams of Burmese travelling into Burma to get footage which is edited and up-loaded to youtube in Thailand. This team of Burmese migrants lead by a young dutch woman have put some very recent and amazing stuff together. The migrants travel into Burma at great risk from bullets or imprisonment to get the footage.

Next surprise is how good the food is and how little it costs. We do have a lot of rice - fried rice with eggs for breakfast, rice with chicken for lunch and rice with pork for dinner at street stalls. Each meal is less than NZ$4.00. The Thai beer, Singha, is fine to wash it down with too. However, we have had a break from rice which has been great but sometimes expensive. Good to have the choice though. Most people know I struggle with spicey food and only once have I chosen wrongly and nearly burnt my mouth right out. My stomach is managing fine and I am having no problems there at all. Surprise surprise!

Also I have not found an undesirable toilet yet. The worst was on the overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Most of my trouble was because the toilet was wobbling with the train movement. By the end of the trip ie after 14 hours I was avoiding the toilet as it had to be bad by then. Earlier on it was OK.

Anyhow, 4 weeks more before I get to Mae Sot to start work. It will be good to eventually get there. My Thai language is the next challenge.

Hope all is well at your place.

Thailand - here I come

In a fortnight's time I leave for a year as a volunteer, with VSO, in Mae Sot, Thailand. Mae Sot is close to the Burmese border and my work is aimed at getting migrant kids into registered schools. Currently, it seems, about a quarter of these children go to schools.

Some people say "What on earth?" "Why would you do that?" "I've always wanted to do something like that." "You must be very brave - or silly" "I'll come to see you." and so the comments go. I watch people's faces when I say that now and have off-pat answers.

But really ..... I'm going for an adventure, to experience a very different way of life, to have new challenges and to help other people. I have had my 9 immunisations, I have a year's supply of anti malaria tablets, my flight details have arrived and I have spent the last while with family and friends enjoying their company. I still have to be able to ride a motor bike - can you imagine me on the streets of Asia on a motor bike with my white full faced helmet (still have to get that too).

I will miss everyone I leave behind there is no doubt. But now.......

Now I am nearly on my way.